Free Cheating Time by T. R. Graves Page A

to snatch it off me. In the end, he respected Dad's
position enough to stand mute and let us pass without saying or
doing anything.
    Coward , I
thought, rolling my eyes his way.
    Dad's disappointment, the solid grip he had
on me, Mom's pleas coming from behind us (begging Dad to forget
what I'd said), and Jayden's willful ignorance exasperated me.
    Instead of speaking near the barn where we
could be overheard, Dad pulled me toward the reek of the chicken
pen. The hens were beyond perturbed that we'd had enough nerve to
get so close to them. They balked and clucked so loudly that our
words were quite nearly drowned out. Only Dad and I would ever know
what was said, and that's exactly what he wanted.
    "What in the hell are you doing, Carlie? Do
you have the first inkling of what's going on here?" Dad's words
may have been discreet, but there was no missing his anger.
    "I-I'm just trying to figure everything out.
We've been here for six months. I might know a few things, but Mom
knows more. I can't understand why she's not telling everyone who
will listen what President Barone is doing. It's the only way to
get him out of office," I said, my voice small.
    Like a pin popping a helium-filled balloon,
Dad's stare burst my fervent appeal that we do the right thing.
    "And who, pray tell, do you think the
citizens of this great nation are going to blame for giving him the
technology he's used?" he asked.
    Stopped short, my brows raised as the
realization sank in. It had never occurred to me that anyone would
believe that my objectively thinking and sensible mother, my
compassionate mother, would ever invent anything that was
specifically geared toward killing people in pursuit of the perfect
human race.
    That is not who Mom
is.
    "I-I didn't think of it that way," I
mumbled.
    "That's right, Carlie. Now you're getting
it. They'll hold President Barone responsible for its uses, but
they'll blame your mother for inventing the MicroPharm. She'll
become a villain alongside the president. She'll be in more danger
than she is now if that happens because people want to blame the
gun and not the gunman, the laws and not the lawbreakers."
    "I'm sorry, Dad. I-I hadn't thought about
that," I said quietly.
    "That's really the problem here, Carlie. You
don't think before you speak. You and your mother are so much
alike. Like her, you'll do great things. You need to learn from her
mistakes. After she made her discoveries, she knew they were
important. She wanted the world to know about them. She wanted them
to be used for all of the great things they could be used for.
    "Gran warned her there would be people who
would want to use them to carry out genocidal activities. She
refused to believe the technology she'd so carefully developed
would ever be used to murder and manipulate." Dad took a long,
angry breath. "Do you see where that got her? Do you see where that
got all of us? Learn from her. Learn from us," Dad said, waving his
hands around the farm, showing for the first time since we'd
arrived just how disgusted he was with where we'd ended up.
    "I…" My voice was hoarse and cracking. "I
never knew."
    "Until now, your mom's never really wanted
to admit that she's the reason we are where we are, that her
technology has been President Barone's greatest weapon when it
comes to silently executing by the hundreds anyone who doesn't meet
his expectations of the perfect citizen. She…" Dad put his hand to
his mouth and choked on his own words.
    I'd only ever seen Dad cry one other time,
and that was when Aunt Christi, Tawney's mother and Mom's sister,
and her husband Uncle Ron had been violently murdered while Tawney
slept the night away in the safe room Gran had built for her.
    I felt guiltier for making Dad cry than I
had all night long… than I had in a long time. Maybe ever.
    "You have this all wrong, Carlie. Your mom's
the one leaving us tonight. Not you. At first, we were going to
send you back with Jayden. Actually, he probably thinks